7 Types Of Process Improvement Methodologies You Should Know

About

Summary

Business process improvements are methodologies in which a team evaluates their current
processes and adapts them in order to increase profitability. This article highlights seven
different process improvements your team can use to reduce inefficiencies and increase
profit.
If businesses decided to consistently stay the same over time, many of them would collapse.
Innovation requires change, and if businesses don’t change to meet customer demands, they
won’t achieve much growth.
This is why many organizations use some form of process improvement methodology to
adapt their processes to customer demands.

What is process improvement?

Business process improvements are methodologies in which a team evaluates their current
processes and adapts them with the intent to increase productivity, streamline workflows,
adapt to changing business needs, or increase profitability.

7 types of process improvement

methodologies
There are seven different business process improvement methodologies your team can use to
help reduce inefficiencies. In most cases, the methodology you choose depends on why you
want to improve your processes and what you’re looking to improve.

1. Six Sigma methodology

Six Sigma is a process improvement methodology that aims to minimize the amount of
variations within the end product. Developed in 1986 by American engineer and Motorola
employee Bill Smith, this process uses statistical data as benchmarks to help business leaders
understand how well their processes work. A process is considered optimized if it produces
less than 3.4 defects per one million cycles.
Six Sigma is often used in manufacturing, mainly because it helps minimize defects and
inconsistencies. The goal here is to optimize for consistency, which in the end leads to
customer satisfaction.
There are two main processes used in Six Sigma: DMAIC for existing processes and
DMADV for new processes. Since this article focuses specifically on improvements to
existing processes, let’s dive into the DMAIC process.
What is the DMAIC process?
DMAIC is a Six Sigma process used to optimize existing processes. DMAIC stands for:
 Define the opportunity for improvement.
 Measure the performance of your existing processes.
 Analyze the process to find defects and root causes.
 Improve processes by addressing root causes.
 Control any improved processes and assess future process performance to correct
deviations.
The bulk of the DMAIC process improvement happens during the analysis stage. During the
analysis stage of DMAIC, teams use a fishbone diagram, or an Ishikawa diagram, to visualize
the possible causes of a product defect. The head of the fishbone diagram states the initial
problem—then as you follow along the spine of the fish, each rib lists different categories of
issues that can lead to the initial problem. This type of visual analysis is a good way to
identify the different issues one root cause can create.

2. Total Quality Management (TQM)

Total quality management (TQM) is a customer-focused method that involves continuous
improvement over time. This technique is often used in supply chain management and
customer satisfaction projects.
TQM relies heavily on data-driven decisions and performance metrics. During the problem
solving process, you use success metrics to decide how you can improve a process.
Here some key features of TQM:
 Customer-focus: The end goal of TQM is always to benefit the end customer. If your
team is focused on improving quality, ask yourself how that process change may
affect how end consumers experience your product.
 Full-team involvement: Unlike other process improvement methodologies TQM
involves the entire team—not just production. As a result, you may end up looking for
 ways to optimize more business-centric processes, such as sales and marketing, to
benefit the end consumer.
 Continuous improvement: Continuous improvement in business is the idea of making
small changes with the goal of continually optimizing processes. There's a lot of
variability when it comes to business, and continuous improvement helps your team
adapt when outside circumstances change.
 Data-driven decision making: In order to apply continuous process improvement, you
must continually collect data to analyze how processes are performing. This data can
help identify where there may be inefficiencies and where to focus improvement
initiatives.
Process-focused: The main goal of implementing TQM is to improve processes. Other
process improvement methods like Six Sigma work to minimize the amount of defects, while
TQM works to decrease inefficiencies.

3. Lean manufacturing
This form of process improvement goes by many names, with lean manufacturing being the
most common. It may also be referred to as Lean production or just-in-time production.
Defined by James P. Womack, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos in the book "The Machine
That Changed the World," Lean highlights five main principles based off of the authors'
experiences at Toyota manufacturing.
The 5 principles of lean
1. Identify value
2. Value stream mapping
3. Create flow
4. Establish pull
5. Continuous improvement
Read: What is lean project management? 5 principles explained

4. Continuous improvement (kaizen)

The Japanese philosophy of kaizen guides the continuous improvement model. Kaizen was
born from the idea that life should be continuously improved so we can lead more satisfying
and fulfilling lives.
This same concept can be applied to business—because as long as you are continuously
improving, your business can become more successful. The goal of continuous improvement
is to optimize for activities that generate value and to get rid of any waste.
There are three types of waste that kaizen aims to remove:
 Muda (wastefulness): Practices that consume resources but don’t add value.
 Mura (unevenness): Overproduction that leaves behind waste, like excess product.
 Muri (overburden): Too much strain on resources, such as worn out machinery or
overworked employees.
Read: Understanding kaizen: A guide to continuous improvement in business

5. Plan Do Check Act (PDCA)

The PDCA cycle is an interactive form of problem solving. It's used to improve processes
and implement change. PDCA was created by Walter Shewhart when he applied the scientific
method to economic quality control. Later, the idea was developed even further by W.
Edwards Deming, who expanded on Shewhart's idea and used the scientific method for
process improvement in addition to quality control.
There are four main steps to the PDCA cycle:
 Plan: Decide on the problem you would like to solve, and create a plan to solve it.
 Do: Test and implement the plan at a small scale.
 Check: Review how the actions in the Do stage performed.
 Act: After reviewing the results of the test, decide whether or not you want to
implement the change at a larger scale.
PDCA is an improvement cycle. This means that these steps can be repeated until your team
reaches the desired result.
Read: What is the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle?

6. 5 Whys analysis
The 5 Whys analysis is a process improvement technique used to identify the root cause of a
problem. It's a really simple process in theory: you gather a group of stakeholders who were
involved in a failure, and one person asks: "Why did this go wrong?" Repeat this question
approximately five times, until you get to the root cause of an issue. The 5 Whys analysis
aims to identify the issues within a process, but not human error.
Here's an example:
Problem: There was an increase in customer complaints regarding damaged products.
 1. "Why did this happen?" Because packaging was not sufficient enough to protect the
products.
2. "Why was the packaging not sufficient enough to protect the products?" Because the
team testing packaging did not test past a certain level of stress.
3. "Why did the team not test the packaging further?" Because current standard
processes indicated that the testing indicated was sufficient.
4. "Why did the current standard process indicate that this testing was
sufficient?" Because this process was created for a previous product, and not this
current product that is coming back damaged.
5. "Why wasn’t there a new process for the new product?" Because the project template
for launching new products doesn’t include stress testing the new packaging.
You can see from this example that the team asked “Why” until they identified the process
error that needs to be fixed—in this case, adding a “stress test new packaging” step into
their product launch template. When working with stakeholders in processes like this, it's
important to identify the issues, and co-create next steps together so that your production can
improve.

7. Business process management (BPM)

Business process management, or BPM, is the act of analyzing and improving business
processes. Much like any organic being, businesses grow and shift over time. Your team may
have implemented processes that worked when your team was small, but as you grow those
processes may not scale in a way that allows your team to be as efficient as possible.
Most of the time, BPM helps teams identify bottlenecks, ways to automate manual work, and
strategies to improve inefficiencies. There are five main steps to business process
management.
1. Analyze: Look at your current processes and map them from beginning to end. This is
commonly known as process mapping.
2. Model: Draft out what you want the process to look like. Ideally, you'll have found
any inefficiencies in the first step, and you can draft how you would like to solve
them in this stage.
3. Implement: Put your model to action. During this stage, it's important to establish key
success metrics so you can gauge whether or not the changes made were successful.
 4. Monitor: Decide whether or not your project is successful. Are the success metrics
you identified in step three improving?
5. Optimize: As the process evolves, continue looking for inefficiencies in your process
and continuously optimize as you go.
Read: The beginner’s guide to business process management (BPM)

Manage process improvements to increase

productivity
As a team lead, one of the most valuable things you can bring to your team are clearer
processes and better workflows. When used effectively, process improvement increases your
team's productivity and decreases inefficiencies.
To increase clarity and improve processes, try work management. Work management
tools like Asana can help you take your team’s productivity to the next level by standardizing
processes, streamlining workflows, and keeping your team in sync.